This is absolutely devastating news for anyone who really loves good journalism and great sportswriting. David Halberstam was killed in a car crash in northern California earlier today.

If you've never read anything by him, you've definitely seen him on dozens of ESPN documentaries, the various Sports Century pieces and Who's Number 1 countdowns and the like. He was a go-to guy for any issue that demanded perspective, clarity and understanding.

And if you've never read any of his classics on American society, like 1969's The Best and the Brightest (about Vietnam) and 2002's Firehouse (about Sept. 11), you should at least check out his great sports books. I've probably got 1994's October 1964 (about the 1964 seasons of the Cardinals and Yankees) memorized. I've been nibbling at 1981's The Breaks of the Game (about a season with the post-championship Portland Trail Blazers) for a couple of years after having found it at a used-books sale in San Francisco. (Yes, these are all on Amazon, too.) He's written about Michael Jordan, about Bill Belichick, about Ted Williams and his old Red Sox teammates. The list of just sports titles is just ridiculously long, and I have yet to hear a negative word about any of them, because he gets his subjects or subjects perfectly and puts them in exactly the right context. Again, the sports books only scratch the surface of what he turned out. He's so good, only he is capable of coming up with the words to describe how good he is.

This really hurts. And it was just a few weeks after Kurt Vonnegut died. A terrible loss.